Empathy is Harder than Math
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It involves perceiving and connecting with their emotions, fostering understanding, and often responding with compassion and support. Mathematics is the language of patterns and relationships in...
Five Ways to Embrace Your Mortality
We are all going to die. But we also avoid thinking about our mortality. And we are likely to reflect on our deathbeds that we didn’t spend time doing on the most important things during our life. I’ve had some near death experiences – tumbled over a waterfall, got...
A Being in Nature Haiku
Connective nature. Peaceful replenishing here.* Get outside today. - A being in nature haiku that reflects how getting outside, especially within trees and near water, improves physical and mental health. -- *Take nature walks Trees solve pretty much every problem on...
Say No to Meetings
That have no agenda. That are not organized. When you have no control over the outcome, content, and/or dialogue. That overlap with existing commitments. When you know they will suck your energy and wellbeing. That have the phrase "pick your brain" in the invite. When...
Seven Co-operative Reflections from Bologna, Italy
For two weeks I am participating in the Emilia-Romagna Co-operative Study Tour, which is a Vancity program designed to enhance knowledge about the co-operative movement and inspire connections between each other, our work and co-operative leadership. The Italian...
Cormac McCarthy and creativity and influence
Cormac McCarthy has passed from this world at the age of 89 and he was an icon of American literature and his real and violent words and stark sentences unabashedly embraced the run-on sentence to paint a real and brutal picture of the world. From my perspective,...
What if Succession was Cooperative?
The hit HBO television series, Succession, is over. My wife, who is her own person, and I (any millions of fans around the world) are experiencing some cultural emptiness on Sunday nights as we reflect on an impeccably acted show that somehow humanized truly awful...
Five Ways to Cultivate Dissent on Your Team
Creating a culture of dissent on your team will enhance performance and effectiveness.
Work Like Nikola Jokić Plays Basketball
Nikola Jokić is a two time National Basketball Association (NBA) Most Valuable Player (MVP). He loves passing the ball almost as much as he loves horses. In fact, Jokić is probably the best passing big man of all time, one of the most efficient and accurate scorers of...
Star Wars vs. Harry Potter
Over the last week, my oldest son - he will be referred to as "The Oldest Boy" - has been fascinated by the age-old question of who would win in a battle between Star Wars vs. Harry Potter. Not only has exploring, and debating, this question generated super-fun family...
Five Ways to Build Psychological Safety on Your Team
I have an awesome colleague named Lindsay and we trust each other. Something that helped us get to where we are is psychological safety. One of the ways that I know such a thing exists is because Lindsay felt comfortable telling me that my articles on this website are...
Bring Doughnut Economics to Your Community
In 2018, Oxford Economist Kate Raworth introduced the world to a different sort of doughnut. This doughnut is a visual representation of a sustainable economic system that balances the needs of people and the planet. The inner ring represents the social foundation,...
Three Examples of Innovation Inspired by the Pandemic
The novel coronavirus pandemic is a global tragedy. At least one million people have died from the virus. The International Monetary Fund is predicting that the pandemic will cost over $28tn in lost output. How we live and work will never be the same. Consequently,...